


birds in warped time ii

by dixiehellcat



Series: Pepperony Bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (not the movie lol), Age Regression/De-Aging, F/M, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Shower Sex, The Avengers Get Told, Young Tony Stark, temporary age difference, twink meets cougar, weird science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24747985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: Not the usual de-aged Tony fic. This time instead of a kid, he's 25, and beautiful, and Pepper...is torn.Fill for Pepperony Bingo, space "De-aging"!
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Pepperony Bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765135
Comments: 23
Kudos: 114
Collections: Pepperony Bingo 2020





	birds in warped time ii

**Author's Note:**

> Time period, between the end of Iron Man 3 and the main events of Winter Soldier.
> 
> The title comes from a gorgeous piece of modern classical music by Japanese composer Somei Satoh, whose theme he describes as "I would like it if the listener could abandon all previous conceptions of time and experience a new sense of time presented in this music as if eternal time can be lived in a single moment." It seemed right for a story about youth, age, and the thin line between the two.

The morning had gone well, and looking back, Pepper supposed that should have been a clue things were about to go sideways in a spectacularly weird manner. Stark Industries had partnered with the New York Council of the Sciences to sponsor events that supported students of color interested in engineering programs. Today a Q and A session with a group had been scheduled, and Rhodey and Tony had intended to be the speakers; but Rhodey had been called out of the country on an unexpected military mission, and Tony was swamped with Avengers affairs. 

So, here Pepper was, trying to answer the eager kids’ questions about science when business was her field. She didn’t mind it, though they were so energetic they made her feel old. Fortunately, the kids were sharp enough to switch gears, ask her something about running SI, and let her ramble. And ramble it was; in other circumstances, she would have accused Tony of digging up an excuse to skip the meet-up, but she knew better. Between the demands of keeping gear repaired and constantly upgraded for a team of superheroes, and going on missions with him, she worried the Avengers expected too much of him, and she knew he wasn’t about to tell them no. She wanted to talk to him about it, but he never wanted to discuss work, his or hers, when they were together, if it could be avoided. She didn’t dislike that, and completely understood it, but still, it troubled her.

The session was wrapping up when her phone buzzed. She let it go and focused on saying goodbye to the bright little faces, thanking the moderator and collecting Happy. With all that, it was a good twenty minutes before she was settled in the back of her car and could locate her phone. It was a text from Steve Rogers, which alarmed her; Pepper hadn’t even known he had her number. The message quietly terrified her. ::Miss Potts—reply asap please::

With shaky fingers, she hit the callback button—she didn’t know his number either. “Captain Rogers, has something happened to Tony?”

“Ah, sort of? Don’t panic, he’s not dead, he’s not even hurt, not really.” 

“Well, that makes complete sense. Explain, please?”

“SHIELD called the team out—except Thor, he’s still on Asgard, I guess. They’d been trying to locate a rogue scientist, didn’t give us a lot of background. We were supposed to bring him—oops, her—in, and let their agents secure the lab she’d cobbled together in some house out on Long Island. Nobody knows if she lost control of something she was experimenting on, or realized what was going on and turned on the nearest approaching target, but some kind of energy ray hit Tony. It knocked him down, we got her secured and checked on him. He was out cold, we thought. Banner knew how to release the Iron Man suit from outside, so we got him out and laid him down. Tony was…” Rogers paused. Pepper’s heart hammered and her breath refused to steady. “He looked—strange.”

“Strange, how, exactly?” Pep strove for patience but it was running out fast. Was Tony burned, or bloodied? More scars were no big deal to her. Or was it something deeper, his brain injured, his brilliant mind hurt—that wouldn’t matter to her either, but it would destroy him, if he was cognizant enough to know.

“Younger,” Steve said bluntly. “He came around in a few seconds, but he didn’t know any of us, and he asked if the year was 1995. We tried to contact Colonel Rhodes but he isn’t available—Natasha left him a voicemail, and hopefully he’ll get back to us ASAP, but until then we’re having a—a time. Tony doesn’t know us, like I said, and whatever that ray did to him, he won’t know you either, I’d wager, but you know him best…he’s asking for Obadiah Stane. Bruce remembered Tony mentioning his mentor died in a plane crash several years ago, I think? We hadn’t told him that, or anything really, but you know Tony, it’s hard to hold him off for long. Maybe we should have waited to contact you until we knew more, but we sure could use your help right now.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I just finished my meeting, actually, and I’m on my way back to the tower.” Pepper drew an easier breath. Tony was alive and intact, so anything else could be handled. “You are at the tower, I assume? I’ll be there as fast as I can.” She hung up and leaned over the front seat. “Happy, step on it.”

Happy stepped on it, as much as a limo in Manhattan traffic could. Pepper stared out the window, not really seeing the buildings they raced past, her own mind racing. Younger? How could Tony look younger? Or be confused about the year? Had the weapon that hit him affected his memory? He didn’t remember the Avengers; the thought that he might not remember _her_ tore at her soul.

As soon as Happy pulled into the garage under the tower, she was out of the car and running for the elevator that went straight up to the private floors: the penthouse, Tony’s work areas, and the floors he had designed especially for the Avengers—the ones they rarely used. Bruce was the only one who had accepted Tony’s offer to move in, and Natasha had visited a few times, but that was all. She didn’t have time to pay attention to the comings and goings of superheroes anyway, and that was not uppermost on her mind at this moment, of course. “JARVIS, where’s—where’s Tony, please? And what the fuck is going on?”

The pause before Tony’s AI replied scared Pepper more than anything else she had heard so far. “The Avengers and sir are on the floor designated in the remodeling floor plans as a common space for the team. As for the current circumstances, I must admit, Miss Potts, that I am at a bit of a loss. My apologies.”

Pepper tried not to hyperventilate. He was alive, and where there was life, there was hope. “It’s okay, JARVIS. We’ll be okay.”

The elevator doors opened and the first thing she heard was—Tony’s voice, but not. The rapid-fire delivery could come out of no other mouth, but the pitch and timbre were too high. A slim male figure was pacing, alternating between talking on the Starkphone in his hand and looking down at it in obvious fascination. He turned, and Pepper nearly fell off her high heels in surprise. The young man was clean-shaven, his face smooth and more rounded than her love’s. His dark hair was a tousled mess, and before he gulped and turned away and back to whoever was on the other end of the phone conversation, something seemed off about the mouth. But the eyes, the eyes that met hers and widened until they nearly swallowed his face—yes, those were Tony’s eyes, those bottomless pools of honey whiskey that she could happily drown in.

“Uh, gotta go, platypus, see you when your deployment is—what? What do you mean, you’ll be back in a couple of hours, you’re in fucking Thailand—ulp—yeah, cool, cool, somebody just came in and I think I really need to meet her…what, that little red—oh. Um. No, you’ve never lied to me—okay okay, see you then, bye!”

Without the years of maturity, and the muscle built from hauling hunks of metal around assorted workshops and flying and fighting as Iron Man, the Metallica t-shirt and button-fly jeans she recognized from Tony’s closet hung loosely on his less developed frame. The part of Pepper’s brain that was still busily functioning and totally female, however, could not keep from noting down the fact that his ass was still epic.

Through the fading buzz of the initial shock, she registered Steve Rogers, still in his full Captain America garb, angling in from one side, as this juvenile, this baby, approached. The eyes she knew so well, in a face just wrong enough to be unnerving, were fringed with lashes she wished she could steal—she’d said that to Tony before but this was just absurd. “Tony,” Rogers said, “this is Miss Pepper Potts. She’s, uh, your…”

Pepper cut in smoothly, saving the captain from an awkward moment and letting her CEO identity take charge with a firm handshake. “I run Stark Industries for you,” she explained.

Tony lit up. A big grin flashed across his face, and now she could see what had unconsciously drawn her notice a moment before, a gap between his top front teeth. He’d never mentioned that to her, and she didn’t remember seeing pictures of it. It pushed him over the edge from cute to insanely adorable. “Obie put you in charge, then. Great, he knew I wasn’t any good for all that business bullshit. I’m still processing all this—I can’t believe he’s gone. These guys—what, the Avoiders? Availers? Avengers!—yeah, they told me a lot, a hell of a lot. A plane crash…” He shook his head. 

The urge to tell him the truth was strong, but Pepper’s drive to protect him was stronger. “No, you put me in charge, not him. I—assume the team has filled you in on the year, and the situation. Anyway, I was your assistant for ten years.”

“Ohhh.” He nodded with a smirk that was supposed to be wise and worldly, but just looked to Pepper like self-defense, and gave her a measuring gaze, down and up. “Not that you don’t look totally competent, because you absolutely do, but ten years? We have to have—”

“Let’s, ah, not talk about that right now,” she cut him short, mostly because Rogers was so red already he looked sunburned. 

“Oh yeah, old me has some kinda taste.” He pouted for a beat when she let go of his hand and stepped back, before he regrouped and came right back with what he clearly thought was a winning line. “From what I hear, I’m only gonna have this hot young body for a limited time. We should get the maximum use out of it! Drinks, dancing, come on, what do you say?”

“You don’t look old enough to drink,” she retorted, “and I know you’re only so-so at dancing.”

Tony deflated. “Fuck,” he grumbled. “So I never did learn, huh? And I’m 25, so I am in fact more than old enough to drink, even if I’m not as old as this guy.” He shoved Steve, who crossed his beefy arms and didn’t budge. “Ow. Brick wall, you are, yeah.”

“He’s been flirting with all of us.” Natasha appeared out of seeming nowhere at her side and whispered in her ear.

Pepper held back a laugh. “No surprise there. Who wouldn’t he charm?” As unsure of her path as she was, she could not help but be charmed herself. She took in the beauty of the boy, and had to fight back a twinge of desire. Her Tony, with his hard-earned greying hair and the laugh lines she adored, was hers, but this young buck threw her back in time. 25, he had said, and Steve had mentioned 1995. It was almost 5 years after this before she had met Tony for the first time, still barely past girlhood herself. She remembered how gorgeous she thought he was, in her early days in SI’s accounts receivable, and how she had constantly reminded herself of the stories other staff told about his insatiable appetites.

She was pulled back to reality (and how was this her life now, that dealing with her de-aged boyfriend barely mussed her hair?) by Tony’s continued rant, which was perfectly in character. “—how the fuck is Captain America here anyway? Howard didn’t find you before he got drunk and kissed a tree with his car’s front grill—”

“Longer story than we want to waste time on,” Steve said crisply. 

A scowl crossed Tony’s face (this was really bad, even that was precious, like an angry puppy in an internet meme) and Pepper decided to nip this in the bud; clearly these two weren’t going to get along any better with Tony nearly two decades younger. “What more do you know about how Tony got this way, Steve?” she asked.

Steve grabbed onto the change of subject like a life preserver. “Turns out the scientist had gotten canned from a government cancer research facility, but she was obsessed with following this idea she had, so she made off with some classified data, cobbled together some equipment with black market parts, and tried to build this device to shrink tumors.”

Bruce came up and joined the conversation. “Basically, she wanted to rewind their biological clock, instead of burning out the malignant cells and damaging the surrounding healthy ones—force them to age backward and ultimately vanish. Good idea, but unfortunately for us and Tony, not practical with the tech we currently have.”

Tony’s eyes flew to Bruce and narrowed. Pepper knew the look when he was listening intently and his mind was taking flight. “Bet I could build tech that would, I mean, I don’t know anything about medicine, but it sounds like you do. Which is amazing, considering if I remember right, when I woke up here, you were bending over me looking like the Jolly Green Giant. So maybe we could work on that together? I don’t know how long I’ve got here—” Pepper tried not to think about the sound of that turn of phrase, how desperately she never wanted to hear those words out of Tony’s mouth in any setting.

“She told SHIELD she thinks 24 hours max, assuming you don’t intake anything to alter your body chemistry,” Bruce told him.

Steve wagged his finger at Tony in reproof. “That means no alcohol for you, young man.”

Pepper stifled a small chuckle, and expected Tony to do the same. Instead, he bristled. “You don’t have to patronize me, Captain. I heard more than enough of that from Howard, growing up, being compared to his perfect friend, the perfect human, and obviously, I always came off worse in the comparison.”

“I—ah. You never told me that, Tony. Sorry.”

Tony shook his head. “Forget it then. I don’t whine about my childhood to everybody.” As Steve stepped away, he added under his breath, “Not big friends with my ‘teammates’, huh? No surprise there.” Pepper couldn’t argue there—he had pegged the state of affairs with his usual lightning-quick analysis.

One thing that clearly had not changed was Tony’s nervous energy. He looked like he was about to start pacing again, so Bruce offered to show him their joint lab. “Yes!” Tony pumped his fist. “I want to see everything I can’t remember. Sounds crazy, but so what, I’ve been called worse, called myself worse actually.”

“I’ll come with you,” Pepper added. “Then if you like, I can show you your private workshop.”

“You can get into my private workshop?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a come-hither look that was so Tony she returned her usual indulgent eyeroll without even thinking. The next moment, she could almost see him rein himself in as though he had forgotten himself. “Ah, sorry about that. Just surprised you seem so up to speed on this hero stuff. I didn’t expect these guys to be so forthcoming in front of you, but it makes sense. You have to keep tabs on me, I guess. SI’s board probably hates me as much now as they ever did, so they want to know what shit I’ve done that they may have to spin to the newspapers. That sucks, and I’m sure I should apologize but that’d take up the rest of the 24 hours.”

There was another thing that hadn’t changed—had Tony always been so down on himself? Pepper shook her head. “As far as keeping tabs, not really. Oh, they aren’t fond of you, but it’s not for those kinds of reasons, not anymore. And they aren’t fond of me either, so between the two of us we keep them in line.” Tony didn’t reply, but the tilt of his head and a quiet _huh_ said all she needed to know. 

Barton’s head popped up over the back of the sofa in the main sitting area of the floor, one hand stuffed in a Pringle’s can. “If you need something to keep him out of trouble until young jerk becomes old jerk again, I needed the gear he was supposed to repair for me last week.”

Natasha nodded. “Same here. I’m sure he has a lot of tasks to do, but every time I come by, whatever he’s fiddling with rarely looks relevant to Avengers business, or SI either, if I’m honest, Pepper.”

Tony was halfway to the elevator, already chatting with Bruce, but he halted mid-step and turned, looking baffled and a bit taken aback. Pepper tried not to sigh. Couldn’t they let him be for even a few hours?

“Good idea,” Steve chimed in. “Get him doing something productive, something simple. The hours’ll fly by and—”

“ _He_ got a couple decades knocked off his time clock, temporarily.” Tony’s voice was colder than she ever remembered having heard it, yet paradoxically, it dropped in pitch until it almost sounded like the voice she knew. “ _He_ did not get rendered invisible, or lose his hearing. _He_ is standing right here: one version of him, anyway. Do you assholes always treat him like the hired help? I thought he was supposed to be part of your team.”

“Tony,” Steve said in a tone that made Pepper suddenly want to scream: gently condescending, the kind she had heard from men in authority her entire fucking life. “There’s no need to get bent out of shape. You are just designated as a consultant.”

“A _consultant_?” Tony erupted, his little fists clenched by his sides. “Then why the fuck was he out there with you, getting shot at by mad scientists right out of Scooby-fucking-Doo? Is this how you get what you want out of him? Nothing new there either, Howard always warned me about it, how everybody would take advantage of the Stark name and money, and my brain, and I hate like hell to ever admit the old man was right about anything, but hell, maybe he was. Wish to fuck he was here right now to be disappointed in his star-spangled unattainable role model,” he spat at Steve, then whirled to face her. "Miss Potts!" She braced herself; she had wished he would release that fury, but now it was likely to be turned on her. Instead, he just went on, “Remind me to leave old me a note to stop letting people who claim to be his friends push him around. We got more than enough of that back in the day.”

Pepper managed to keep her jaw from dropping long enough to say, “Duly noted, Mr. Stark. JARVIS, please take care of that?”

Tony’s face went from furious flush to pale in a second, and his eyes narrowed. “Wait up. Jarvis is—”

“Not the human Jarvis.” Pepper frowned and looked around. Barton and Natasha had vanished. Steve was still sputtering and now looked even more at a loss. 

Before he could explain himself—surely to hell somebody on the team had told Tony about JARVIS, or the AI himself had—JARVIS spoke up. “Young sir was fairly agitated when he arrived with the Avengers, Miss Potts. I was unsure how he might take my intervention into the situation, and since I was not called upon, I thought it prudent to hold my peace and observe. Perhaps I was mistaken, but I did what the data I had available to me seemed to dictate.”

Tony’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “I…He’s dead, Jarvis died…”

“He’s an AI,” Bruce said and moved forward when Tony took a staggering step as though dizzied by shock. “You built him.”

It took another breath or two for Tony to regain his composure, and then his eyes lit with renewed excitement instead of rage. The Avengers were dismissed as though they weren’t even there. He grabbed Bruce’s arm with one hand, reached for Pepper with the other, and demanded that they, as he put it, “show me the future!”

The joint lab, as expected, sent Tony into spasms of scientific pleasure. He insisted he really, really wanted to figure out how to turn the mad scientist’s inadvertent weapon into the healing instrument she had intended. “You’ll help me with it, won’t you?” he all but pleaded with Bruce. “If I’m not senile when this wears off, or I wake up an infant like that guy in the old Fitzgerald story. I don’t think I’m getting any younger, though, who the fuck knows.”

Bruce pledged his help, and begged off on the rest of the tower tour to start researching the topic. While Tony examined the gear the other Avengers had taken him to task over (though he made clear he was not about to try to repair it and probably leave his older self more work) Bruce tugged Pepper aside to apologize. “I hate to leave you to wrangle him alone, Pep, but Hulk doesn’t quite know what to make of this. He’s already protective of Tony, and this juvenile version is amping that up like crazy. I think he and I better steer clear till Tony’s back to himself.”

It was sweet that Hulk was so fond of Tony, whatever his appearance, but Pepper had to admit she wished Bruce could have come along as she led the way to Tony’s workshop. In the depths of her heart, she was torn. This iteration of Tony clearly had even worse impulse control than the one she knew, and though she was secretly glad he had finally called the Avengers out for their treatment of him, she wasn’t quite sure how she would handle it if he started to hit on her again. He was Tony, after all, but right now he wasn’t the Tony she loved…was he? 

Her concern was tabled when they entered the workshop and DUM-E rolled up to greet them. The bot bleeped and tweeted, then halted and tilted his claw like a confused puppy at the sight of Tony. He gasped, flung his arms around the metal chassis and seemed ready to break down and cry. “Hey, buddy, what are you doing here?”

“As if you’d ever let your oldest child go,” Pepper gently chided. “He’s still a bit of a disaster, but we love him.”

Then of course, U had to come and try to horn in on the party, and Pepper had to make introductions. “Nice to see somebody familiar at last,” Tony said fondly, one arm still draped over DUM-E’s strut.

“Rhodey should be here any minute,” she reminded him, and was a little startled by the cynical little laugh he gave in reply.

“He’s in the military, Miss Potts. I doubt they’d let him drop whatever he’s doing for—”

“You’ll be surprised, then,” she retorted. “As a general rule, Rhodey does pretty much what he wants to, especially where you’re concerned.” 

He didn’t hide his skepticism very well, but he did finally shift his attention from the bots to the rest of the workshop. Thankfully, the sliding panels in the rear that concealed the Iron Man suits were closed—there weren’t nearly as many of them; he had kept his word to her after the loss of the Malibu house and workshop, and not gone on another suit-building binge. Tony didn’t remember the Avengers pulling him from his wrecked one, and Pepper was uncertain about mentioning them or showing them to him, for fear he’d try to take one for a spin. There was no way _that_ would turn out well.

That decision was blown sky-high when Rhodey landed in War Machine. He popped out of the grey armor and into a full-speed embrace. “You look good!” Tony declared. “Really good, considering it’s been something close to twenty years.”

“Well, you know how it is,” Rhodey shrugged. “Black don’t crack.” His smirk widened into a full laugh. Tony joined him as they hugged again, but within a few moments the tone changed. “Hey,” Rhodey said, suddenly softer and more intense, “it’s okay, Tones. Damn, you’re shaking. You’re okay. I’m here, Pep’s here, you’re good.”

Tony backed away and let out a long shuddery breath. “Yeah. I’m okay,” he said, obviously trying to persuade himself, before his gaze fell on War Machine. “And you are clearly far better than okay. What the fuck is this gorgeous thing?”

“Yours!” Rhodey said brightly. “Well, mine, but yours. You built it, you gave it to me.”

Everything emerged from that, in a flow like a river undammed. Pepper opened the bulkheads and revealed the suits lined up like an iron legion along the back wall of the shop. Her explanation barely touched on the arc reactor; this Tony had no scars from it to pique his curiosity, no memory of the chronic pain he had only admitted to Pepper after its removal, so she saw no need to traumatize this man still half a boy with that entire gory tale. From Rhodey’s one look and barely lifted eyebrow when she skimmed over it, he didn’t disagree.

At some point Rhodey called out for Chinese, Pepper kicked off her shoes, and the three of them ended up on the workshop floor eating. She danced around the darker elements of recent history, until Tony, no less perceptive for his youth, called her on it. “Whatever you aren’t telling me, spill. You’re making me more nervous trying not to say it. I mean, I’m not a time traveler, it's not like I'll wake up back in 1995 in a position to use the intel. Once this damn zap gun’s effect wears off, I’ll just be—forty-four again, right?” He slurped some noodles. “Guess that’s not as old as I always thought it was, if I’m flying around in mech-armor fighting aliens and criminals, huh?”

“Yep,” Rhodey agreed. “Kicking ass and taking names. It’s kinda nice to get to see the Tony I remember again, though.” With a broad grin he tapped his front teeth. “That extra space is a blast from the past.”

“I don’t have it now?” Tony almost looked disappointed. “Obie’s been riding my ass about getting it fixed. Says the board’ll never take me seriously, which, fuck ‘em, they probably won’t anyway. I've been holding out just for spite, but I guess I caved, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Rhodey laughed. “You got into a fight in a bar and by the time I dragged you out both those teeth were loose and had to be replaced. Good to be with you not under the influence of anything right now.” Tony pouted, and blamed Pepper, who reminded him why he had to abstain. She wished she had a drink, actually, when she told him about Afghanistan, and Stane. Thankfully, though he was shaken, he took it better than she had expected.

They talked long into the evening, and when Rhodey started hiding yawns, Tony shoved him toward his armor with snarky wisecracks about his advanced age. Pepper honestly hadn’t known the armors could shoot a bird, until War Machine gave Tony a double shot of middle fingers before he headed out. “Whew. Okay, refueled, ready to play with old me’s amazing toys a little more.” He particularly loved the holoscreens, and pulled half a dozen up to pore through assorted data files. “Huh, this one’s password protected,” he said, but cracked it in a few minutes. “It’s a date,” he commented while Pepper stood and stretched her legs. “Not one that rings bells for me, though granted, I’m lucky I remember any of those. It must be something that’s pretty important to old me.” He read it off, and Pepper’s heart stood still. It was the day he had gone missing in Afghanistan. “Uh, JARVIS—damn, this is so good, having somebody here to take notes for me all the time!—I shouldn’t have read that aloud, I guess. Remind old me to change that password.”

“I shall deliver that notice,” JARVIS replied. “However, I rather doubt your more mature self will alter it. in addition, I should put your mind at ease, young sir, and inform you that Miss Potts has the same clearances as you. in fact, it has stood you in good stead in the past for her to have access to your files when you were unable for some reason to retrieve them.”

Tony’s pretty unlined brow barely creased in thought. “Miss Potts. That date mean anything to you?”

“It’s, um, my birthday.”

“Really?” He was plainly surprised, but tried to hide it—well, as well as Tony Stark could ever hide anything from her, which was to say, not very well at all. After a moment of silence, staring at her, he seemed to shake off whatever he was thinking. “So!” he said with a sudden burst of that manic energy and camera-ready smile she hated, “where do I sleep? Other than in here sometimes, obviously.” He tossed one hand toward the couch against a side wall. “No surprise there, I do that now, but do I own an actual bed that I use at all, that you know of?”

Schooling herself to calm, Pepper led him up to the penthouse, which impressed him. “Whoa. Good job, old me, you either developed an eye for interior design, or got somebody who did.” She did not say she had decorated the place, his home, their home. “I’m sure you want to get home, it’s getting late and the CEO of SI doesn’t need to spend her free time babysitting. I’ll be fine—maybe I’ll just fall asleep and wake up an old guy again.” It sounded like the awkward end of a blind date, and that hurt, but how could she tell him this was her home too? “Hey,” he said while she waffled. “Hey, Pepper? That’s not your real name, is it? Did I give you that name?”

That got her attention in a swift and breathtaking way. “No, it isn’t, and yes, you did. Did you remember that, just now?”

“No, it just sounded like something I’d do. I do that, you know. Well yeah, obviously, you know I do that. Give nicknames. To my friends. I guess we are friends then? Not just business associates. I made your birthday a password after all. And I must trust you a lot, from what JARVIS and Rhodey said. So, uh, would you do something for me, before you go?”

“Of course.”

“Show me me. The old guy.”

Without hesitation, Pepper crossed the open living room and picked up the framed photo sitting on the shelf behind the bar. “You swore to me once that you had been called many things, but never nostalgic,” she said, “but this picture was taken in Monaco, just after you made me CEO. Two years ago, the tower, and a lot of New York City, was badly damaged by the aliens’ attack. When we rebuilt, you insisted on printing another copy, and you scoured the internet until you found the identical frame.” 

Tony started to roll his eyes, but instead looked down at the frame she held out, and went very still. “That’s—us.”

She nodded. He took it; she had always been one of the only people who could hand him things, even back when they were only employer and employee. “You did a lot of reckless, infuriating things, in that period of time. It wasn’t until the Stark Expo was attacked that I found out it was because you were dying, and you wanted to push us, push me, away, so I wouldn’t hurt when you were gone. That plan didn’t work so well,” she added with a laugh that she forced out past the lump in her throat that rose from thinking back on those awful days, “which was good. You didn’t die, and we kissed on a rooftop in Queens.”

The silence stretched. Pepper waited. “Wow,” Tony said finally. “Yeah. I, ah, I know I came on strong before, but… I don’t remember you, but I—do? Kind of? Something in me remembers you, even if my conscious mind doesn’t.” His head snapped up then, thick unruly hair flying, and horror suddenly overtook his features. “It’s not because of the job, is it? That we're together, I mean. Because if old me would do that to you to make you keep a job, I’ll go back to the lab and build a damn bomb and blow his geriatric ass to—”

“No, no!” Pepper had to laugh again, more freely this time. “It isn’t like that, not at all. I loved you for years, before I could say it, and before you said you loved me too.”

“Huh.” The liquid dark eyes searched her face. “So…love.” He bit his lip, seeming almost afraid to say the word. 

“Yes. Through all the craziness of being a billionaire genius superhero. That’s not what I love, though. It’s you.” Reminded of something he had said to her, that day he had put his legacy in her hands to steer after his death, she added simply, and truthfully, “It’s always been you.”

He cocked his head again, as if the words might have struck a chord somewhere in the recesses of his de-aged mind. Then he looked back down at the photograph. “I didn’t turn out looking as much like Howard as I thought,” he said. “That scared me, I didn’t want to look in the mirror when I was old and see him.”

This time she was the one who gave a derisive snort. ”Believe me, 25 year old you may think the 40’s are old, but they are definitely not.”

A wicked grin, though diffused slightly by that ridiculously adorable gap between his teeth, took over his face. “Still,” he coaxed, “don’t you wanna take this new car for a spin? I promise I won’t try to sing _Mrs. Robinson_ at you.”

Pepper nearly slapped him, nearly inarticulate with giggles. “Do you really want to spend your one night with a cougar?”

“Cougar?”

“Never mind, that term must post-date you,” she chuckled, but then sobered. “Even if you were serious, I’m…afraid to. I know you. You’ve been through a lot, and your body—shows it. You’ve got scars. They bother you, sometimes. You’re self-conscious about them, and I don’t want you to remember this, and think that it was a young beautiful body that I wanted, and not you, because that is not true. I love every one of those scars. Every one of them is a time you might not have made it home alive, but you did. You came back to me.”

Frankly, he looked stunned now. “You, uh,” he stammered, trying to summon up the performative cockiness she had seen him don and doff for more than a decade, the skill this Tony was only just developing. “You think you know me that well.” She just nodded. “Maybe you do. Or maybe not. I never imagined anybody would say those kind of things, feel those kind of things, about me. And let’s be real, that just makes me want you more. Even if, somehow I conned you into a relationship—”

“You did not,” she cut him off, “con me into anything. I made up my own mind, thank you very much. I chose to love you, Tony. Granted, right now what I’m feeling is a little more like robbing the cradle.”

“Not even close,” he fired back with a challenging glint in his eye. “To give myself credit where it is due, as it always is, I’ve been with a couple of older women, and they taught me some shit. You might appreciate it.” His laugh was sharp, though, and she found herself wondering how many older women might have taken advantage of this lonely, defensive young man. He tapped on the glass that covered the photo. “But this is the guy you want, right? The one who’s been around the block, and came back to you.” She wasn’t sure what to say; he really was beautiful, crazy gap teeth and all. “Would…would you stay with me, though, Pepper? We don’t have to do anything, seriously. You can borrow something to sleep in. It’s just that if this wears off by morning I—kinda don’t want to be alone?” She grinned, took his hand, and led him to the master bedroom, where she opened the closet and pointed out her side. “You, you live here too,” he said with a breathless little laugh. “Whoa. So this is serious serious. Okay, old me, way to go.”

_We don’t have to do anything_ , he had said, but while Pepper cleaned up and readied for bed, she could feel his eyes on her. She managed to keep her own gaze to herself until she heard the shower come on. Free from scrutiny, she looked up into the mirror that covered one wall. From the shower she heard low humming; Tony had never sounded that content in the shower, always rushing in and out. Across the tile and behind the frosted glass door, she could make out the indistinct shape of his body, and her mind, unbidden, envisioned it, lithe and tan and clear. Her focus shifted to her own reflection, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair brushed smooth and straight. She didn’t look much older, this way, than she had when they met either, and her thoughts skipped from imagining his body to imagining its heat pressed to hers, wondering what it would be like to make love to him this way. She moved cautiously across the big bathroom toward the shower door; her fingers crept beneath the hem of her nightshirt, and her breath quickened.

When the door popped open and a naked young Tony Stark rolled out, Pepper let out an undignified squeak and started to backpedal, but distracted as she was by her rising horniness, she slipped on the tile floor. Tony lunged and caught her before she could fall. “Pepper! Fuck, I didn’t—you were just leaving, weren’t you, it’s okay if you were, I can’t expect you to be—”

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, hard. Her hand went straight for his hair, the way it seemed to do by default every time their lips met, and tangled in the damp ringlets she loved so much. He froze, and she had just enough time to panic before his grip tightened around her and he proceeded to plunder her mouth, eager and slightly sloppy. What this younger version of her beloved might have lacked in expertise, he more than made up for with enthusiasm and fervor.

When they finally paused to catch their breath, Tony cocked his head. “Too much?” he asked, so much like that first kiss of theirs when he had asked her so seriously if it was weird. 

This time, as she had then, Pepper smiled at him and shook her head. “Not at all.”

Her nightshirt, soaked through from being plastered against his wet body, ended up on the bathroom floor, and she ended up spread out on their bed. Tony started to hunt around in alarm for condoms, until Pepper assured him he hadn’t caught anything since last night and she had birth control. Then he popped off almost as soon as he was inside her, and nearly slunk away in humiliation; she grabbed a double handful of that wonderful hair and directed him where she needed him. Once it registered with him that she wasn’t angry he had come so abruptly, a filthy smile spread across his boyish face and he put the natural gifts of that mouth to work again.

Her legs were still shaking from her first climax when he sat up and licked his lips like a satisfied cat. He slid up her body, and his fingers slid inside her. “I want to enjoy the view this time,” he breathed in her ear. 

He did enjoy the view for quite a while, as he slowly teased her to another orgasm. Gasping and panting, she came down with him nestled beside her. “You need a shower,” she teased gently once some of her brain cells came back online.

“Only if you join me,” he countered, and well, Pepper usually showered in the mornings because Tony liked nights, but habit had never stopped her from the pleasure of his presence. More was on tap than hot water, she suspected and was right. She wound up perched on the shelf in the shower stall (the one Tony insisted was for soap and pretended to get offended when she pointed out it was not only far too wide for just soap, but situated at the exact height of her butt) while he got his second wind, buried himself in her and drove her to climax one more time. 

Watching his brilliant eyes widen, then half close, while his breath stuttered and caught, and his head snapped back in his own release, never got old, though it occurred to her, far too late, that she wasn’t sure she had ever seen Tony without his signature facial hair. _Maybe I’ll suggest he shave sometime_ , she thought with an evil glee while he slumped against her, his youthful vigor finally spent. When his face finally lifted from its resting place on her wet breasts, his smile warmed her to her bare toes squishing on the tile. “Be right back,” he said the next moment, and hopped out of the stall. 

Pepper followed and toweled off, listening to him grumble and dig through what sounded like a desk drawer. “What are you doing?” she asked when she went back into the bedroom. 

He was leaning against his desk with pen in hand, scrawling on paper. “That note I wanted to leave for old me got a little longer, sorry.” She shook her head in amusement and lay down, almost dozing off before she felt his weight settle on the edge of the mattress. “This is okay, right? I, um, haven’t slept-slept with many people after I slept with them, but then, I haven’t been with anybody who said they loved me, nobody I thought meant it, anyway, so, no data to draw conclusions from—"

“Hush,” she said drowsily. “Fair warning, I snore. If that bothers you, roll me onto my side. Oh, and in that event, you like to be the little spoon.”

She slipped away to the sound of his laughter, so bright and young but still unmistakably Tony, and slept soundly until sudden movement brought her awake to early morning. About to nod off again, she heard a gasp beside her. She rolled over and was greeted by familiar eyes and mouth; except now, the wide eyes were bracketed by laugh lines, the mouth by mustache and goatee. “You’re home early,” she said with a sleepy smile. “Didn’t last 24 hours.” She tapped his upper lip. “Thought I might get to kiss you with that cute gap between your teeth one more time.”

Instead of returning the soft snark, he looked frantic. “Pep—oh fuck, Pep—everything’s fuzzy, like a drunken binge, only worse. I—what did I do? What did I do to you, honey? I was—did I take advantage of you? I’m almost sure I took advantage of you!”

She knew that panicky tone, and that expression of guilt, and woke up just enough to take the situation in hand before it spiraled out of control. “You wore me out,” she replied and snagged his wrist as he tried to scramble out of bed. “And before you get wound up thinking I’m upset, why don’t you come here and let me show you how not-upset I am.” _Morning be damned_ , she thought.

A nice, long, loving makeout session ended with Tony conked out on Pepper’s chest again. She laughed to herself, asked JARVIS to turn off her usual alarm, and followed suit. They both woke in a while, to full daylight and the mutual growling of their stomachs. True to form, Tony was more concerned about locating his broken suit. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she told him while texting her assistant. “SHIELD or the team will have it, and you can get it later, because after what you went through yesterday, we are both taking the day off. Neither of us is working or even answering messages unless there’s another—”

She groaned loudly when Tony’s phone went off just then and he grabbed it without hesitation. “You hadn’t finished the declaration,” he sassed, “which means it’s not in effect yet, which means I need to check this, if for no other…huh. It’s Cap.”

“Tell him you are taking a medical leave day,” Pepper ordered.

“It’s not that. They…all stayed over last night, here, apparently. Said they’d like to thank us properly, and apologize—wha?—for the way they’ve been acting…oh fuck, kid me went off on them, didn’t he? That punk, if he were here I’d spank him—” Pepper’s protective glare shut that line of attack down. “Um. Anyway, he says—Romanoff is cooking, on the team floor? Some kind of hellacious Russian cream cheese pancakes? And for us to come eat with them.”

“RSVP for two please!” Pepper called, already halfway to the bathroom. “Dibs on quick shower, be right out!”

By the time she came out pulling on comfortable lounging clothes, Tony had located his suit, arranged for its transport back to the tower, and was on the phone arguing with some minion of Fury’s about scheduling a job interview for SI with the mad scientist who had zapped him. That was no surprise—Pepper had had quite a time explaining to HR when Tony had offered work to repentant henchmen of previous villains the Avengers had been called out on, people he had seen some spark of potential in. This time, judging from Tony’s side of the conversation, he wanted to get her a sort of work-release and team her with Bruce to work on her cancer treatment dream. 

When he saw her come out of the bathroom, he headed that way, phone still to his ear, but detoured to his desk to pick up a piece of paper. By his body language, he was about to crumple it up and shoot at the nearby trash can. Pepper intercepted him. “I’ll take care of that,” she hissed. “Move! Do you really want Natasha angry that you let her peace offering get cold?”

She might not know the other Avengers that well, but Natasha had worked for her, if briefly, and Pepper knew Tony had a healthy respect (bordering on fear) for the Black Widow. With a dramatic if silent gulp, Tony scampered off and she considered the page she held. She wasn’t nosy by nature, but this might be an occasion to make an exception.

_Okay, old me, listen up. No idea why I’m addressing you like a different person. When this uber-phaser expires, I’ll cease to be. I’ll be you again, I guess? What the fuck ever. Anyway, short on time, Pepper awaits—which, more on her in a minute. Don’t know how to put this without sounding like a wuss, and I already asked the aforementioned Miss Potts to remind you, but PLEASE don’t let these hero types push you around. Remember the Smoot Society? Let’s not have a repeat of that nightmarish chapter of our life, okay?_

_Hopefully you remember me ripping your Evaders a collective and gaping new asshole yesterday, and I regret nothing. From what I hear, you, or I, or we, have been through a hell of a lot. You have no reason to roll over and show your belly, and you clearly have no reason to go to those lengths to have somebody in your life. You already have the most amazing thing to ever happen to us. Pepper is incredible, you do know that, right? I hope to fuck I don’t have to tell you how lucky we are to have her, smart, and beautiful, and kind. You better not screw this up, old guy, or so help me Tesla, I will find a way to come back and kick my own wrinkled old ass. So go, make it good, Tony Stark. Make it a life I’d look forward to._

Pepper smiled, folded the paper and slipped it into her pants pocket. Tony might not feel the need to keep it, but she thought she would.

**Author's Note:**

> I fully intended this to be a one-off, and it might still be, but while writing it, I found spots where at least two other stories could hook in...you can probably see them too. Let me know if you are interested...
> 
> During their phone conversation, Rhodey thinks Tony is about to hit on Natasha, and warns him she can kill him with her thighs without breaking a sweat. ;p
> 
> Tony's outfit is stolen from Hank Palmer, what about it? lol
> 
> The story Tony mentions is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yes, the author of The Great Gatsby, and yes, the story the movie is based on.


End file.
